Tokyo: Prannoy H S, who have been in a consistent form this year, staged a major upset as he trounced the world no 2 local shuttler Kento Momota on Wednesday in the second round of the BWF World Championships.
Prannoy, ranked 18 in the world, registered a comfortable 21-17, 21-16 win over former two-time world champion Momota of Japan at the Tokyo Metropolitan Arena to set up a meeting with compatriot Lakshya Sen in the third round.
This was Prannoy's first ever win over Momota in 8 meetings. Interestingly, the Indian had won just a single against the Japanese in their last seven outings, that came in 2014 French Open in round of 32 which Prannoy loses in three games.
Sen, the reigning Commonwealth Games champion and the 2021 worlds bronze-medallist, defeated Spain’s Luis Enrique Penalver 21-17, 21-10 in the round of 32 match.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth, who became the first Indian man to play in a world championships final last year, however, had a disappointing ending to his 2022 campaign after a 9-21,17-21 loss against China's Zhao Jun Peng.
There was a twin win in the men’s doubles event, as the second best Indian pair of M R Arjun and Dhruv Kapila upset the 2021 bronze medallists Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, by a 21-17, 21-16 scoreline to advance to the round of 16.
India’s top-ranked pair Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, the Commonwealth Games champions, cruised past the Guatemalan team of Jonathan Solis and Anibal Marroquin 21-8, 21-10 to make the pre-quarterfinals.
In women’s doubles, the CWG bronze medal-winning pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly bowed out after losing 21-8, 21-17 to Commonwealth gold medallists Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan of Malaysia.
Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy too fell 21-15, 21-10 to Tokyo Olympic silver medallists China’s Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan.
And, the pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh fell 15-21, 7-21 against South Korean combination of Shin Seung-chan and Lee So Hee of South Korea.
Another women doubles team of Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam lost to Kim So-yeong Kong Hee Yong 21-5, 18-21, 21-13 in the round of 32.